


petrichor

by itisphantasmagoria



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst, Fluff, Hitchhiking, Hitchhiking AU, Humor, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, University, i'll stop now, idk - Freeform, it's angsty and fluffy, it's kinda funny, it's so fulffy, sorry - Freeform, what else would it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:52:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itisphantasmagoria/pseuds/itisphantasmagoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>louis is lost and so is harry and maybe they’re soul-mates</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	petrichor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Homo_Parade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Homo_Parade/gifts).



> au in which louis thinks it will be a bad idea to pick up a hitch-hiker who may or may not be a serial murderer, so he does it anyway
> 
> apologize for any mistakes, forgive me
> 
> for samara because reading her work always puts me in the mood to write  
> also because i love her ♡♡

 

 

  
_Sometimes depression means_   
_Ignoring every phone call for an entire month_   
_Because yes, they have the right number_   
_But you’re not the person they’re looking for, not anymore_

_-by “Alexandra” Tilton, NH (Teen Ink: November 2013 Issue)_

It’s almost midnight and Louis is pissed. Not drunk pissed, although that would be altogether more bearable than this. No, he’s mad. He’s so so so mad, and when he sees Zayn, Louis is going to punch him in the face and then hug him, because he’s mad but he’s still a good person. And he does love Zayn. Even though Zayn is a stupid idiot and he is the one in the wrong here, not Liam, so really Louis should be driving a crazy long distance to comfort and console the doe-eyed brunette, not the crazy raven-haired lunatic who forgets anniversaries. 

Louis is currently in his shitty car, listening to a shitty radio station because his shitty CD player is broken, driving to shitty Bradford from his shitty university in shitty Birmingham, to see his shitty friend, because he had a shitty fight with his shitty boyfriend. It’s a shitty situation and if Louis wasn’t in such a foul mood, he’d think of some kind of pun to laugh at and then repress later. 

It’s not that the drive is _that_ long. It’d be about two hours normally, except that Zayn lives on the far side of Bradford and Louis’ car is very cheap and so in actuality it’s going to be about three. He really wouldn’t have minded if maybe Zayn had called him on a Friday and said, “Hey Lou, I miss your face! Why don’t you come on down to visit your old friend Zayn tomorrow, at a reasonable hour? Great, I’ll see you then!” But really, Louis had woken up at eleven o’clock on a Wednesday night to a phone call from a sobbing Zayn, who had said, “Louis, where the fuck are you? I am in a time of crisis right now because Liam doesn’t understand me or care about my feelings, and you’re _at school?!_ What kind of friend are you? Hurry up and come see me! And bring food.”  

So, being the admirable person he is, Louis had only sworn at Zayn for about ten minutes, thrown on a hoodie and some sweatpants, got a coffee from a gas station, and got on the road. The coffee tasted shitty though, so he’d thrown it out only to realize that he was insanely tired and might possibly fall asleep at the wheel and die (not that Zayn would care. He’d be too wrapped up in his misery to even notice, probably). But the stars are out and the song just turned to a Taylor Swift one he will never admit to liking, and it’s really not too bad at all. 

After another ten minutes though, Louis sees the outline of a person up ahead. All Louis can see is that whoever it is is very tall, and suddenly he is struck with the desire to do something incredibly stupid. His mother’s voice in his head says very clearly, ‘ _Always be careful of who you’re alone with. You never know what could happen. Don’t ever put yourself in a situation with someone who could easily hurt you._ ’ But he’s never been one to adhere to rules and as he gets closer to the stranger, he sees in his headlights that it’s a boy with brown curly hair, wearing a red flannelette with no sleeves, skinny jeans, and carrying a big duffle bag that Louis briefly thinks could fit a chopped up body.

And so with his heart rate picking up he finds himself pulling the car over to the side of the road just in front of the strange boy. The boy runs up to the car and Louis reaches over to unlock and open the door for him, cold air filling the car immediately. The boy sticks his head in and smiles happily at Louis, who now realizes that he may be picking up a hooker or something, because this is the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen in his life. He has deep dimples in his cheeks and bright green eyes and a smile that makes Louis want to drive his car into the nearest tree. 

“Hey, thanks for stopping,” says the boy gratefully, getting into the car and shutting the door. His voice is gravelly and rough and Louis has a vague thought in the back of his mind that he should maybe be a bit worried that he could be about to be murdered. 

“Don’t you want to know where I’m going before you get in?” asks Louis. Maybe the boy doesn’t care because he’s going to kill Louis anyway and then take his car and drive wherever he wants. Zayn would probably have a heart attack because no one would be there to make him tea and force-feed him while he cries.

“I don’t even know where _I’m_ going,” says the boy. “And it’s freezing out there.”

“That’s fair enough,” says Louis, pulling the car back onto the road and trying to ignore how blatantly attractive the possible murderer he’s just picked up is.

“I’m Harry,” says the boy, shoving his duffle bag down at his feet.

“Louis,” he says back. Harry is an attractive name. Then again, so is Ted Bundy.

“Nice to meet you, Louis,” Harry says. “Where are we going exactly?”

“Thought you didn’t mind,” Louis says, attempting humor. He thinks he should possibly regret this entire decision, but Harry seems nice and also very very very attractive, so caution to the wind, or whatever.

Harry laughs. “I don’t,” he says. “But I’m still curious.” 

“Bradford,” says Louis.

“Where from?”  

“Birmingham.”

“At twelve thirty in the morning?” 

“I’d tell you that it’s an interesting story, but it really isn’t,” says Louis, because it isn’t. And he figures that Harry’s is a lot more interesting because he’s walking along the side of the road in the middle of the night dressed as a punk rocker and going nowhere.

“I’d still like to hear it,” says Harry. “Tell me stuff about you, and all that junk. If it’s okay to ask for stories _and_ a ride.”

“My life is so blatantly uninteresting,” Louis says. “I have no idea why you’d want to hear about it.” 

“I like people’s stories,” says Harry. “People are interesting. You never know what a person’s been through. You don’t know what anyone’s like and even if you spend a lifetime with someone I still think you could not know everything there is to know about them.”

God, Harry’s already so interesting. Louis doesn’t have any views or opinions like that. He’s all ‘studying to get a good job’ and ‘work hard to go far in life.’ It’s so boring. But he starts talking anyway because maybe Harry will tell him some cool stories and maybe one day Louis can be a story of Harry’s.

“Basically, my friend Zayn forgot his anniversary and so he fought with his boyfriend and now Zayn is all mad because he somehow thinks he’s in the right, and I have to drive all the way from uni to go and comfort him,” says Louis, hoping that maybe Harry will laugh. He does.

“Sounds like a handful,” says Harry.

“Zayn? He’s about three handfuls,” Louis groans.

“You’re at uni?” Harry asks then. “What are you studying?”

“Just drama and teaching, nothing interesting,” says Louis, because being on the road to being a high school drama teacher is really the least interesting thing ever.

“What are you talking about?” says Harry. “Of course that’s interesting. Everyone’s doing something different, and as long as they’re happy then of course it’s interesting. Are you happy, Louis?”

“If this is where you ask me if I’ve accepted ‘our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ then maybe don’t,” says Louis, and Harry laughs again. 

“No!” he says in mock frustration. “I’m just asking if you’re happy!” 

“I’m happy,” says Louis. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Harry is quiet for a moment and Louis knows that he is looking at him, but he keeps his eyes firmly on the road. “You know you can tell me, right? I’m a stranger in your car. You can tell me anything and it won’t matter because you’ll probably never see me again anyway.”

“How about _you_ tell _me_ a story,” says Louis after a few moments of silence. They have two and a half hours left to drive and he doesn’t know if he wants to go into all that stuff. 

“Okay,” says Harry. “Do you want to hear about the time my friend Niall broke his arm because he was trying to sneak into Disney on Ice?”

“Definitely,” says Louis.

An hour passes and Louis finds himself wondering if maybe he knew Harry in another life, because they don’t seem to have any trouble getting along at all, and also Louis is still alive, so that’s a plus. It turns out that he was right, and Harry is actually very interesting. Louis finds out that he ran away from home at sixteen because his parents threw his sister out of the house, and Harry couldn’t be around all the screaming and fighting. Then he just wandered around, meeting people and experiencing things. He’s nineteen now, so three years younger than Louis, but he’s seen so much more of the world. Louis feels very jealous.

“Do you believe in soul-mates?” asks Louis, after a discussion about how Harry’s last relationship ended with him punching a cop and his ex peeing on himself.

“I’m flattered Louis, but really, we’ve only just met and-” Harry begins, but Louis cuts him off.

“I don’t mean you, crawl out of your own ass,” Louis says, causing Harry to breakdown into laughter. “I mean it in general.”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. He’s got his feet up on the dash and his head to one side, staring out the window, and if Louis didn’t have to watch the road, he’d be able to watch Harry forever. “I don’t even know if I believe in love at all.”

“Nor do I,” says Louis. And it’s a weird thing to be discussing at one in the morning with a nineteen year old hitch-hiker who you’ve just met, but at the same time it makes more sense than discussing it with someone who you know.

“I mean,” says Harry. “I don’t know how you can depend on someone else so whole-heartedly. You give them the power to break you and more often than not, they do.”

“It’s fucking depressing, but I agree,” says Louis. “I’ve only ever loved one person, and I don’t think I even did. Love him, I mean.”

“Is that why you’re so sad?” asks Harry.

“I’m not sad,” says Louis back.

“You’re looking for a way to be alive,” says Harry. “You picked up a stranger off the side of the road. The only people who ever do that are lost.”

“Yeah, well, things happen, people hurt you, life goes on, even if it’s going on around you and leaving you behind,” says Louis. And it’s early in the morning and he’s telling a stranger about things he has only ever told people he’s very close with, and the stranger seems to be the only one who’s ever listened. 

“Hell is other people,” says Harry quietly.

“Oh, you’re so poetic,” Louis mocks.

“I am, but Jean-Paul Sartre said that, not me,” says Harry, laughing a little. 

“Well John Paul Whatever is right,” says Louis softly. “Hell is other people.” 

It’s quiet for a moment. The only sound is the radio playing some indie song. But it feels like the music is background noise to the silence, because that is louder.  

“Hey, Louis?” Harry says. 

“Yeah?” says Louis back.

“If you want, I could be your soul-mate,” Harry says. “Just for tonight.”

Louis looks at him and Harry’s already staring at him and he’s not smiling but he’s not frowning either. He’s just kind of looking at him and he looks sad and happy at the same time and Louis wants to drown in him. And he thinks that maybe, just for tonight, that would be okay.

“Yeah,” says Louis. “Yeah Harry, I’d like that.” 

And Harry bites his lips and he puts a hand on Louis’ face and kisses him but only quickly because Louis is still driving after all. But Harry is still looking at him like he’s waiting for something and fuck it, Louis is waiting for something to, he has been for a long time, and so he pulls the car over to the side of the road and he just looks at Harry. He just looks at him and he really actually sees him and sees what he looks like. He has a bit of acne and his eyebrows are messy and his smile is crooked and Louis swears he has never seen a more perfect person in his whole life.

“Is this what soul-mates do?” asks Harry after who knows how long.

“What?” asks Louis.

“Look at one another like they’re beautiful,” says Harry. 

“You think I’m beautiful?” asks Louis.

“I didn’t say that,” Harry says, the corner of his mouth turning up.

“I’m not happy,” he says finally.

“I know,” Harry says back. “Neither am I.”

And Louis wants to say so many things to this strange boy, but he can’t think of any words that will illustrate his thoughts. So he kisses Harry. And Harry kisses back. And he’s got his big hands on either side of Louis’ somewhat small face. And Louis thinks that he knows. Because you don’t kiss someone like this unless you know.

“It’s evanescent,” says Harry breathlessly, between their kisses. 

“What is?” asks Louis, even though he doesn’t know what that is.

“Everything,” says Harry. “Everything is.”

Louis doesn’t ask. Louis doesn’t want to know. Because he thinks that maybe he’ll find out far into the future when Harry is just a memory and it will all come back to him. All of this. Maybe if he forgets what it’s like to be fixed, even for just a little while, then he can find out what it means, and maybe he’ll remember. Like a secret password to being better. To being happy. 

So Louis kisses Harry, and Harry tugs on his shirt, pulling him across to the passenger seat, to Harry’s lap. And it’s cramped in Louis’ shitty little car, but it doesn’t really matter. Because he’s here and so is Harry and he’s not even sure if anything else even exists anymore. And it starts to rain and Louis can’t help but laugh a little because it’s so fucking typical and cliche and Harry laughs too and they’re laughing and kissing and the whole moment is ineffable, because Louis thinks that’s the only word he knows that can describe it. 

Harry runs his hands up Louis body, pulling his hoodie over his head and he tosses it in the drivers seat. He kisses Louis’ collarbones gently and Louis unbuttons Harry’s shirt. Once again, his mother’s voice is in his head, this time saying, ‘ _Always be careful when it comes to sex. Respect yourself. Don’t sleep with strangers._ ’ Once again he finds himself drowning her out. He thinks he can respect himself and still sleep with a stranger. He doesn’t even think Harry is a stranger. He thinks they know each other better than they should.  

“You’re my panacea,” says Harry, his hands on Louis’ chest. 

“Is that a good thing?” asks Louis breathlessly, kissing Harry’s neck.

“Probably not,” says Harry, and they don’t really say much after that. 

At three in the morning they are just sitting. Louis is back in the driver’s seat and Harry is in the passenger seat and they are watching the rain on the windshield and maybe Harry has Louis’ hand in his and maybe it’s a little bit too perfect. But they’re soul-mates for now and maybe it’s just because they are intoxicated on the early morning but even though the moment is just that, a moment, it feels kind of like forever. 

“Louis,” says Harry.

“Yeah?” says Louis. 

“Your phone is vibrating,” says Harry. “I can feel it in my arse.”

“You can... What?” asks Louis. Harry shifts around a little before digging Louis’ iPhone out from under his bum.

“It says ‘Dick-hole,’” Harry says, looking at the screen and smiling.

“That would be Zayn,” says Louis, taking the phone out of Harry’s hand. “Why were you sitting on my phone?”

“Do you think I have all the answers?” asks Harry.

“Well, kind of,” says Louis, sliding the little arrow across the screen and bringing the phone to his ear. “Yes?”

“Louis-” comes Zayn’s voice. It’s very cracked and muffled, probably because the signal is awful out here. 

“What is it Zayn?” asks Louis.

“Where are you?”

“On my way,” says Louis.

“You said that ages ago!” Zayn says. 

“Zayn, I’ll be there soon, okay?” says Louis, hanging up before Zayn can further berate him. Ridiculous. 

“Suppose we better get going?” Harry asks, looking at Louis.

“Before Zayn spontaneously combusts,” says Louis, turning on the ignition and removing his hand from Harry’s in order to use the gear shift.

“Can I ask you something?” Harry says after about half an hour of a comfortable silence. 

“Yeah,” says Louis.

“Do you want to come with me?” Harry asks. Louis’ heart drops into his feet. It’s an impossible question and Harry knows it and Louis knows it and they both know that Louis can’t. But Harry isn’t asking Louis to. He’s asking something completely different.

“Yes,” says Louis, because it’s the truth.  

“I thought so,” Harry says sadly.  

And it’s absolutely insane. It is. Because they are pretending so hard that they are soul-mates that it almost kind of seems like they are. Because how else can they understand each other so well? How else can they know things about each other that neither of them can put into words? How else can it seem like they have conflated so perfectly? And Louis kind of thinks that he knows what Harry means now, about everything being evanescent. 

They get to Bradford as the sun is about to come up and Harry asks Louis to drop him at the bus station. Louis knows this place like the back of his hand, but he almost wishes he didn’t, because if he had gotten lost, the adventure would have been longer. But they get there and the sky is the kind of prussian blue that makes you feel like everything is going to be okay, even if it isn’t. 

They get out and lie on top of Louis’ car, watching the sky change and listening to the city as it wakes up. It’s not raining anymore and Louis wonders if that holds some kind of significance, like a universal metaphor. But whatever. Louis is parked illegally but he can’t bring himself to worry about getting a ticket. Harry has a box of cigarettes that he’s pulled out of his duffle bag, and he starts smoking. Louis watches him as he does. It’s not the same as Zayn smoking. Zayn smokes like he means it but Harry makes smoking look like art. He breathes it in slowly and he shuts his eyes and then exhales the smoke in a cloud that makes his entire being look like what Louis can only describe as ethereal. He offers it to Louis, who refuses, but only because he’s never smoked before, and he doesn’t want to look stupid. He thinks Harry knows that, because he laughs at Louis anyway. Not mean. Just laughs. And Louis does too. He kind of really means it for once.

The whole thing happens very slowly, but it seems like barely a second before Harry is picking up his duffle and looking at Louis like he’s got a pain in his chest. Louis reaches out and pulls him in and kisses him again and it’s so so so strange because it’s an ending to something that never really began in the first place. It’s unsettling but it’s also reassuring in ways that Louis doesn’t want to try to understand.

“Thanks,” says Harry. 

“What for?” asks Louis.

“For being my soul-mate,” says Harry.

“Just for tonight,” says Louis, but it’s kind of more like a question.

“Just for tonight,” says Harry. He kisses Louis one last time before heading towards the bus station. Louis watches him go, unashamedly, and then Harry turns around.

“Hey, Louis?” he says.

“Yeah?” asks Louis.

“Also kind of for forever,” says Harry, and then he’s gone, and Louis is driving to Zayn’s house, tired and alone, but not lonely.

“What took so long?” Zayn demands, when Louis knocks on the door to his apartment.

“I got lost,” says Louis.

“What? How?” asks Zayn.

“I don’t know,” says Louis. “But it’s okay. Because it was only the part of myself that I didn’t even want to begin with. So I don’t think I need to be found.”

He looks at the floor, wondering if he’s ever going to see Harry again, and not knowing if it even matters. Because even if he doesn’t, Harry has left vestigial parts of himself in Louis, and that’s really all that counts. He’s replaced the toxic penumbras that surrounded Louis’ entire being with only himself, and somehow, Louis kind of does believe that the boy he doesn’t even know the last name of could really be his soul-mate. And if that’s not a reason to be happy, he doesn’t know what is.

“It’s too early for your existential bull-shit,” says Zayn. “Did you even bring food?”

And they go inside and fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i apologize i wanted to write smut i really did but how much do you think i know about smut (the answer is not much)
> 
> also apologies if there is any mistakes regarding distances etc, but i live in australia and therefore have used google for everything so
> 
>  
> 
> as usual i'm on tumblr at immaeffingunicorn or little-niall-from-the-block ♡♡♡


End file.
